The Korea Digital Asset Industry Committee, comprising of leading blockchain experts in South Korea, has called for the formation of a government committee dedicated to helping and advancing digital asset businesses in the country.
The group of experts gathered on Thursday to discuss various ways in which Korea could become a leading digital asset market and what role the government should play to achieve that. The experts believed that blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies would become pivotal tools for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The blockchain experts called upon the government to support the nascent cryptocurrency industry along with other emerging use cases, such as decentralized finance, decentralized autonomous organizations, nonfungible tokens and the metaverse.
South Korea’s crypto regulations are seen as some of the toughest, given nearly 200 small to medium-sized crypto exchanges had to shut their operations after regulators’ mandate for crypto exchanges to form real-name bank accounts for users.
Related: KB Bank to launch South Korea’s first crypto investment fund
The Financial Conduct Authority, the chief regulator in the country, has also prohibited exchanges from facilitating anonymous transactions and barred the use of privacy wallets. The regulators had earlier proposed a 20% tax on crypto gains, but the proposal was postponed amid a lack of clarity on crypto regulations. While regulators have shown a strict stance toward the virtual asset market, they seem quite bullish on metaverse as the country announced a $187-million investment in the national metaverse project.
South Korea’s crypto market has thrived despite the regulatory hurdles and rose to become a $45.9billion industry in 2021.
